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Blinded by Science (Oswald Wiener‘s Attempts at Liberation and Epistemological Delineation)

Roman Mikuláš


The paper attempts to reconstruct the defining features of Austrian avant-garde fiction of the 60's, exploring structural characteristics of its emblematic novel the improvement of central-europe (die verbesserung von mitteleuropa) by Oswald Wiener on the background of Austrian Neopositivism, or, more precisely, of its changing concept of language (L. Wittgenstein). Another frame of reference, confirming the avant-garde character of Wiener‘s work is Stirner‘s conception of individual anarchism. The tension between these two poles, characterizing several works of Austrian literary avant-garde can be perceived not only in the framework of poetologic innovation (a new form of novel-writing) but also of epistemological reflection, which leads to questioning of some surviving scientific and theoretic concepts of the cognitive language function.


Keywords: Vienna Group. Neo-Avant-garde. Language Philosophy. Neopositivism. Anarchism.


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